Forecast: Little tsunami…

Every two years or so my husband would turn to me and say “So…when are we going to have kids?”. And I would come back with: “How about in another two years?”. Now the problem with me saying that was we started to run out of time. Both of us weren’t getting any younger. Admittedly, I had always been the type of girl who had made that seemingly glib comment, “I’m never having children”. However, it wasn’t until a work colleague fell pregnant, at my then place of work, and I started to feel pangs of…I wasn’t quite sure. Loss? How can you feel as if you’ve lost something when you’ve never really had or experienced it in the first place? Jealousy? No. It wasn’t jealously either. This was a different feeling, as if my life suddenly felt…empty. I felt as though I was missing something. I felt as if something was awry and off kilter with my world and I could start to see a gaping void staring me in the face. Being me though, I tried to shake the feeling off.

Fast forward almost four years later and hubby and I were on a much-needed holiday at the Karajini Eco Retreat located in the Karajini National Park. Dusk was almost upon us as we sat on our camping chairs on the back verandah of our eco accommodation. Each of us with a beer in hand was happily contemplating the days activities and what lay ahead for the rest of our trip. Sipping quite contentedly on my beer, whilst swatting away some flies, I heard my hubby say to me, “So do you think you might be pregnant then?”. I think I might have spluttered mid-gulp on my beer. “What!?” I was incredulous. I had missed my period before, so I was stubbornly sticking to the belief that this time was really no different. Even though we were trying to start a family, I still didn’t quite feel ‘ready’. Whatever that was supposed to mean. I still felt mixed feelings about starting out on the road to parenthood. Was I really a capable candidate? I knew hubby would make a fantastic father, but I wasn’t so convinced of my skills that would be needed to make this formula work. As it turns out, this time I was pregnant. How did I know? Well, my hubby knew before I did. Maybe it was because of the fact that I threw up on the side of a red dirt track as we left Karajini behind us for our next destination or the fact that the thought of eating was contributing to the churning in my stomach. I was definitely and undeniably in denial.

Upon driving into Tom Price, we hurriedly purchased a pregnancy kit from the chemist. So it was in an automated public toilet in the shopping centre car park that I found out I was pregnant. The line on the second test disputing my stubborn belief that I could not possibly be with child. But despite my protests, the pregnancy test did not lie (and it was proven so by a blood test upon our return to Perth). And so began the journey into the unknown. Holding onto my stomach and its contents as we drove over corrugated dirt tracks became my daily reality for the remainder of our holiday. Knowing that I was going to be a mother was something I struggled with. I couldn’t quite get my head around it, even though we had eagerly discussed becoming parents. Becoming a mother scared me silly, but at the same time I marvelled at the idea that a little person had started to grow inside of me. With this new information, out went the alcohol consumption, the smoked salmon and all things not to be consumed when pregnant. This was the beginning of our next chapter in life. We were looking forward to it. However, little did we realise that our world was about to be turned upside down by a little tsunami…